Teaching is Learning

Dear Daughter I am happy to be by your side as you deal with an important milestone in your life with mixed emotions. Welcome to the lovely-ugly world of periods. Your monthly visitor will now keep coming to you around 360 times. It may visit you irregularly but will not leave you completely for the next 30 or so years. Now, that is really a pretty long time. So, it is always good to develop a working relationship with this monthly friend. The period will not miss visiting you on its own. But you may decide not to have it. This little friend is choosy and attention-seeking. It doesn't visit you when you love someone deeply and when you have a little permanent visitor inside you. It is during pregnancy and lactation that you will not have your periods. Apart from that, your monthly friend will pay its due visit diligently. Welcome it with joy every time. We adjust a bit here and there when our loved ones visit us, don't we? This is because we cherish their company. Periods are a...

As I teach students in the master’s programme year after year, I observe how the youth prefer to spend their time on curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular activities.   This is contextual for classroom discussions, engagement with batchmates for group activities, and overall group dynamics. I present my observations on how students knowingly or unknowingly make choices in spending their time and effort. Alongside this, I also provide some suggestions to improve the learning experiences through proactive and additional efforts that may require an investment of time and effort beyond classroom learning. Tasks and experiences Following the school and undergraduate teaching processes, the students tend to prioritize tasks at the master level too. The primary task remains sitting through the lectures, working on assignments for assessment through individual or group tasks, and preparing for examinations.   Such passive involvement for marks is neither exciting nor adequat...

I teach the Gender and Health module in the MPH course at IIPHG for quite some time now. Having taught and learned the issues passionately, I have become a lot more gender-sensitive over time.   I live the topic and tend to see the world around me – i.e. workplace, family, friends, and students – from a gender prism.   As a facilitator, I remain emotionally connected to the character, content, and community throughout the course, and observe the gender-related processes in the classroom and the institute. While the students get a more nuanced awareness of gender dynamics through discussion of the science and system issues, they also explore and revisit their self and society. I understand that the course often becomes heavy on sensitive students, irrespective of gender. The marginalized and vulnerable students get affected because of their reflections on the lived experiences of gender disparities and injustice. As I try to create an equitable environment conducive to producti...

The educational institutes use elements of performing arts in different forms ranging from instrumental values in the form of devotional dance to inaugurate events like conferences and arranging skits, dramas, and short film competitions to observe or celebrate various thematic days of importance to using creativity as assignments. This use of diversity in pedagogy and assessment is an encouraging sign of flexibility in the approach to learning and teaching. While some students may have undertaken training in such forms as a hobby, and thus may be able to perform and guide others casually, it is important to acknowledge that elements of art forms are not inherent to students who can perform without any coaching or guidance. If these forms are to be mainstreamed, as they should be, the core elements of the art must be valued and respected while using them as a means. As someone who has undergone training in theatre, having worked in and on films, and facilitated the production of audiov...